The research project will conclude with the digital publication of its findings. All the findings will be collated on a dedicated webpage of the Dresden State Art Collections and illustrated with a variety of pictorial material.146
This essay and three others form a complex account of the fate suffered by the family of Gustav von Klemperer. Kathrin Iselt examines the three villas where the von Klemperer family lived, relating the history of their construction and use. Only the villa of Ralph Leopold’s family survived the Second World War largely undamaged. Little remains in Dresden today to recall the once so influential and respected von Klemperer family.147 In his essay Andreas Graul devotes himself to the two Dresden bankers Gustav and Victor von Klemperer. Both men were instrumental in the development of the Dresdner Bank in Saxony and the central German economic region. In 1934 the National Socialists forced Victor out of the bank. Four years later he and his family left Germany, almost penniless but in time to escape the Holocaust.148 In her essay Sabine Rudolph describes how the National Socialist authorities succeeded in seizing and expropriating Gustav von Klemperer’s porcelain collection while preserving the outward veneer of legality. The actual expropriation was not achieved until the begin-ning of 1943, some time after the ‘legal basis’ for the ultimate and wholesale plundering of exiled or deported Jews was created with the issuing in November 1941 of the Eleventh Supplementary Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law.149
It is particularly gratifying that the website is to feature a section entitled ‘Memories’ in which the present-day von Klemperer family have the opportunity to tell the story from their perspective. It was a matter of importance not only to examine the history of the family’s persecution but also to show their lives before 1933 – thus making the loss of so many things, both material and immaterial, more immediate for visitors to the website. Victor Francis von Klemperer, today the ‘head of the family’, agreed to note down his thoughts and memories relating to his grandfather Victor, despite not having known him personally. In this large and widely ramified family there are many memories that have been passed down from one generation to the next. Even today, these are still worth recording.
Likewise in the ‘Memories’ section is a link to the Leo Baeck Institute website where Victor von Klem-perer’s memoirs can be read online (in German). They were largely written in South Africa in 1938 and completed between 1939 and 1942 in Southern Rhodesia.150 Starting from the eighteenth century, he gives an account of the family history, including his parents Gustav and Charlotte, and describes the lives of his brothers, his children and grandchildren up to the time before his death in 1943.
Michaela Howse is the great-great-granddaughter of Gustav von Klemperer. In her essay she weaves the threads that link her home country of South Africa with Dresden as the home of her great-great-grand-parents Gustav and Charlotte von Klemperer. The essay focuses on the remains of a once world- famous collection and on her grandmother Ida Charlotte (1919–2015), granddaughter of Gustav von Klemperer, who as a young woman of eighteen went into forced exile in South Africa with her parents Ralph Leopold and Lili. Up to her grandmother’s death in 2015, Howse was able to question her extensively over the course of frequent conversations. Entitled ‘The Art of Golden Repair’, Michaela Howse’s essay was written for the research project. The final sentence of the essay also provides a fitting close here:
‘In the context of post-conflict incompleteness, I think if inherited porcelain fragments could talk, their advice might be to find that metaphorical gold of love and courage to build now, with a stronger material.’151
Notes
1 Hermann Wiener (1797–1874) was a businessman, banker and owner of a calico factory in Prague.
2 ‘Sensal’, still occasionally used in Austria, is an old-fashioned word for ‘trading agent’, here used to designate the official stock exchange broker.
3 Julius Hirsch is documented in the Dresden address books as owner of a banking and currency exchange firm, see Adreß- und Geschäftshandbuch der königlichen Haupt- und Residenzstadt Dresden, 11 (1865), 13 (1867), 16 (1870), 18 (1872), accessible online at https://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/76439/135/0/ (last retrieved 7. 5. 2021).
4 The general commercial power of representation being known as ‘Prokura’.
5 See Leo Baeck Institute Archives, Memoir Collection (ME 559), on this point pp. 5–7. The memoirs of Victor von Klemperer are accessible online at https://links.cjh.org/primo/lbi/CJH_ALEPH000201034 (last retrieved 7. 5. 2021).
6 On banking see the article by Andreas Graul: ‘The Bankers Gustav and Victor von Klemperer’, accessible online at https://doi.org/10.11588/artdok.00007288. See also Simone Lässig, ‘Jüdische Privatbanken in Dresden’, Dresdner Hefte, 18/61 (2000), pp. 85– 97.
7 Gustav von Klemperer gave his support to the foundation of numerous companies, among others: AG Lauch-hammer, Riesa; AG Sächsische Werke (brown coal extraction and energy production, carbon chemical industry), Dresden; Allgemeine Transportanlagen Gesellschaft, Leipzig (conveyor mechanisms and, from 1933, airborne armaments). He likewise represented the bank’s interests on the supervisory boards of numerous Saxon and Bohemian industrial companies and commercial enterprises, see the article by Andreas Graul: ‘The Bankers Gustav and Victor von Klemperer’, accessible online at https://doi.org/10.11588/artdok.00007288; and idem, Gustav und Victor von Klemperer. Eine biographische Skizze (Dresden, 2004).
8 On the family’s villas see the article by Kathrin Iselt: ‘The Dresden Villas of the von Klemperer Family’, accessible online at https://doi.org/10.11588/artdok.00007290.
9 See Holger Starke (ed.), Geschichte der Stadt Dresden, vol. 3: Von der Reichsgründung bis zur Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 2006), pp. 351– 354; Hartmut Liehr et al. (eds.): Förderer und Stifter in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Zur Geschichte der Gesellschaft von Freunden und Förderern der Technischen Universität Dresden e. V. (Dresden, 1998).
10 In 1991 the Gesellschaft von Förderern und Freunden der Technischen Hochschule was founded anew with the name slightly changed: Gesellschaft von Freunden und Förderern der TU Dresden e. V. My thanks go to Angela Buchwald, Jutta Wiese and Matthias Lienert of the archive of Dresden Technical University for their kind assistance.
On the 100-year-long history of the Society of Friends, see Matthias Lienert, ‘Seit 100 Jahren dem Wohl der Dresd-ner Alma Mater verpflichtet’, DresdDresd-ner Universitätsjournal, 32/6 (2021), accessible online at https://tu-dresden.
de/tu-dresden/newsportal/ressourcen/dateien/universitaetsjournal/uj_pdfs/uj_2021/UJ06-21.pdf (last retrieved 27. 4. 2021). For her research, my warmest thanks go to Kathrin Iselt, research assistant on the project ‘Reconstruc-tion of the Porcelain Collec‘Reconstruc-tion of the Dresden Banker Gustav von Klemperer’, Dresden State Art Collec‘Reconstruc-tions. See also Holger Starke (ed.), Geschichte der Stadt Dresden, vol. 3: Von der Reichsgründung bis zur Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 2006), pp. 351– 355.
11 See Archiv der Technischen Hochschule Dresden, old holdings, Gesellschaft von Förderern und Freunden der Technischen Hochschule Dresden e. V., nos. 756 and 768. No. 768 contains the annual reports for the society’s first and second financial years (1922 and 1923).
12 See Holger Starke (ed.), Geschichte der Stadt Dresden, vol. 3: Von der Reichsgründung bis zur Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 2006), p. 355. Among those who endorsed the appeal was Fritz Fichtner, at this time already director of the Dresden Porcelain Collection.
13 For a fundamental account of this subjet, see Simone Lässig, Jüdische Wege ins Bürgertum. Kulturelles Kapital und sozialer Aufstieg (Göttingen, 2004).
14 See Morten Reitmayer, Bankiers im Kaiserreich. Sozialprofil und Habitus der deutschen Hochfinanz (Göttingen, 1999), pp. 219–220, n. 74, also accessible online at https://digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/
bsb00040358_00001.html (last retrieved 5. 5. 2021); the publication appeared again online in 2000 at https://
www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/book/10.13109/9783666357992 (last retrieved 5. 5. 2021).
15 The Škoda Works were founded as a machine construction enterprise in 1859. Around the turn of the century, the company turned its attention increasingly to armaments technology; in the years 1914–1918, for example, it sup-plied the Austro-Hungarian army with 12,693 pieces of artillery. See the entry ‘Klemperer, Ralph Leopold von’ in Werner Röder et al. (eds.), Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933–1945 (New York, 1999), p. 370, accessible online at https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110968545 (last retrieved 12. 5. 2021).
16 As early as 1870, Oskar Huldschinsky moved from Breslau (Wrocław) to Berlin, where he built up a large art collec-tion, parts of which were sold at auction in 1928. An impression of the art works he owned can be gained from the sale catalogue Kunstsalon Paul Cassirer, ‘Die Sammlung Oscar Huldschinsky’, 10–11. 5. 1928, Berlin, accessible online at https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cassirer_helbing1928_05_10a/0001 (last retrieved 9. 3. 2021).
17 See the entry ‘Klemperer, Ralph Leopold von’ in Werner Röder et al. (eds.), Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933–1945 (New York, 1999), p. 370, accessible online at https://doi.
org/10.1515/9783110968545 (last retrieved 12. 5. 2021). On the family’s villas see the article by Kathrin Iselt: ‘The Dresden Villas of the von Klemperer Family’, accessible online at https://doi.org/10.11588/artdok.00007290.
18 See Hans Bucheit, Miniaturen aus der Sammlung Gustav von Klemperer (Dresden, 1928). For the information that the collection was inherited by Ralph Leopold I am grateful to his grandson Brian Spark.
19 Two examples of similar pieces from the nineteenth century were put up for auction, see sale catalogue Sotheby’s London, ‘Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art’, 5. 11. 2014, lot 136, accessible online at http://www.sothebys.
com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/fine-chinese-ceramics-works-art-l14211/lot.136.html (last retrieved 9. 5. 2021).
For this information my thanks go to Cora Würmell, Senior Curator for East Asian Porcelain, Dresden Porcelain Collection.
20 See Heinz Schmidt-Bachem, Beiträge zur Industriegeschichte der Papier-, Pappe- und Folien-Verarbeitung in Deutschland. Quellen, Recherchen, Dokumente, Materialien (Düren, 2009), p. 258; Holger Starke (ed.), Geschichte der Stadt Dresden, vol. 3: Von der Reichsgründung bis zur Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 2006), pp. 59– 64.
21 Sechste Jahresschau Deutscher Arbeit Dresden 1927. Das Papier, Amtlicher Führer (Dresden, 1927), p. 81. During the exhibition, from 7 to 11 June 1927, there was a meeting of the Central Union of German Cardboard Packaging Producers (Zentralverband Deutscher Kartonage-Fabrikanten), and on 17 June 1927 a meeting of the Union of German Paper Wholesalers (Deutscher Papiergroßhändler-Verband). Furthermore, Victor von Klemperer was a member of the supervisory board of the AG für Cartonnagen-Industrie Dresden.
22 See ‘Klemperer, Hubert Ralph von’ in Werner Röder et al. (eds.), Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933–1945 (New York, 1999), p. 370, accessible online at https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110968545 (last retrieved 12. 5. 2021).
23 See the obituary for Hubert Ralph von Klemperer by Tony Hesp, Natalia, 29 (1999), pp. 102–105, accessible online at http://natalia.org.za/Files/29/Natalia%20v29%20obituaries%20van%20Klemperer.pdf (last retrieved 9. 3.
2021); see also the entry ‘Klemperer, Ralph Leopold von’ in Werner Röder et al. (eds.), Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933–1945 (New York, 1999), p. 370, accessible online at https://doi.
org/10.1515/9783110968545 (last retrieved 12. 5. 2021). Ralph Leopold and his family were fortunate enough to close down their household before departing, most likely taking some of their possessions with them to South Africa.
24 Klemens von Klemperer, Der einsame Zeuge. Von der existenziellen Dimension des Widerstandes gegen den Nationalsozialismus, ed. Ekkehard Klausa (Berlin, 2016), p. 378.
25 On the art collection and on Wilhelm Kuffner’s villa see Katja Fischer, Jüdische Kunstsammlungen in Wien vor 1938 am Beispiel der Familie Kuffner, degree dissertation, Vienna University (2008), accessible online at https://
doi.org/10.25365/thesis.1260 (last retrieved 30. 4. 2021).
26 See Friedrich Hitzig, Wohngebäude der Victoris Strasse in Berlin (Berlin, 1864), plate 26 [XXI], ‘Situationsplan’ with the house number 1, online at https://www.digishelf.de/piresolver?id=PPN71854031X (last retrieved 18. 5. 2021).
Nothing of the historical building survived the Second World War.
27 See Conrad Matschoss, Vom Werden der Wanderer-Werke (Berlin, 1935), p. 102 and p. 103 with a portrait of Herbert Otto von Klemperer. Victor’s father Gustav was deputy chairman of the supervisory board from 1896 to 1921 and chairman from 1921 to 1926. Siegmar-Schönau is an industrial town in the vicinity of Chemnitz.
28 See Ekkehard Klausa, ‘Herbert von Klemperer – ein vertriebener Berliner Wirtschaftskapitän’, in Klemens von Klemperer, Der einsame Zeuge. Von der existenziellen Dimension des Widerstandes gegen den Nationalsozialis-mus, ed. Ekkehard Klausa (Berlin, 2016), pp. 375– 380.
29 Ernst Zimmermann, b. 3 November 1866 in Hamburg, was a trainee for two years at the Museum of Arts and Crafts (Kunstgewerbemuseum) in Cologne before working in Wiesbaden in 1897 and 1898 on an inventory of the historic monuments of Hessen-Nassau. In the latter year he started work as an assistant at the Dresden Porcelain Collec-tion, where in 1901 he was made responsible for rearranging the holdings in the Johanneum. After being appointed assistant to the Director in 1908, in 1912 he was himself appointed Director of the Dresden Porcelain Collection, a post he held until his retirement in 1933. He died on 6 January 1940 in Dresden; see Karin Müller-Kelwing, Zwischen Kunst, Wissenschaft und Politik. Die Staatlichen Sammlungen für Kunst und Wissenschaft in Dresden und ihre Mitarbeiter im Nationalsozialismus, publication of the SKD, ed. Gilbert Lupfer (Vienna/Cologne/Weimar, 2020), pp. 471– 473.
30 SKD, Porzellansammlung, inv. no. PO 17.
31 A Meissen tobacco box cover with a portrait of the Polish king and Saxon elector August III/Friedrich August II (accession no. 40.27) and a Meissen cup and saucer from around 1725 (accession no. 5.27), both of which were lost to the Porcelain Collection in the war.
32 Email sur biscuit is a decorative technique practised on Chinese porcelain in which enamel colours are applied to and fired directly on the unglazed, biscuit-fired body.
33 See Archiv der SKD (Archive of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden/Dresden State Art Collections), 01/PS 032: Genehmigungen, Briefwechsel, Schenkungen, Verzeichnislisten, 1920, correspondence between Herbert Otto von Klemperer and Ernst Zimmermann concerning the exchange, 13. 1. 1920 to 13. 2. 1920, pp. 2– 5, and letter of 14. 2. 1920 from Herbert von Klemperer to Ernst Zimmermann, p. 26.
34 For further information see Herbert Butz, ‘Die Geschichte: Alles beginnt mit Wilhelm Bode’, on the website of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ostasiatische Kunst, online at https://www.dgok.de/mitgliedschaft/die-geschichte/ (last retrieved 22. 4. 2021).
35 Leopold Reidemeister was a research assistant at the Berlin State Museums (Staatliche Museen Berlin) from 1924 and curator of the East Asian department from 1932.
36 See Herbert Butz, ‘Die Geschichte: Alles beginnt mit Wilhelm Bode’, on the website of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ostasiatische Kunst, online at https://www.dgok.de/mitgliedschaft/die-geschichte/ (last retrieved 8. 3. 2021);
Leopold Reidemeister, ‘Erinnerungen an das Berlin der zwanziger Jahre’, in Tilmann Buddensieg, Kurt Düwell, and Klaus-Jürgen Sembach (eds.), Wissenschaften in Berlin (Berlin, 1987), vol. 3, pp. 187–194, here p. 189. In the last year of his life, Reidemeister wrote these memoirs about the Berlin art scene in the 1920s, emphasizing the network of contacts between collectors, dealers and museum curators.
37 Otto Kümmel, ‘Vorwort’, in exh. cat. Ausstellung chinesischer Kunst, veranstaltet von der Gesellschaft für Ostasi-atische Kunst und der Preußischen Akademie der Künste Berlin vom 12. Januar bis 2. April 1929 (Berlin, 1929), pp. 7–10. Somewhat later, in addition to the catalogue, there appeared a handsome volume with 200 highlights from the show: idem, Chinesische Kunst. 200 Hauptwerke der Ausstellung der Gesellschaft für ostasiatische Kunst in der Preußischen Akademie der Künste Berlin´ (Berlin, 1929). Otto Kümmel (1874–1952) was founder and direc-tor of the Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, Berlin, and direcdirec-tor general of the Berlin State Museums.
38 SKD, Porzellansammlung, inv. no. PO 20: China, Song dynasty (960–1279), 1100–1125, acquisition made in 1927 with the Rücker-Embden Collection, Meran; see https://www.skd.museum/presse/2021/eine-echte-sensation-sel-tene-ru-keramik-aus-china-in-der-porzellansammlung-der-staatlichen-kunstsammlungen-dresden-skd-entdeckt/
(last retrieved 31. 5. 2021).
39 See exh. cat. ‘Ausstellung chinesischer Kunst, veranstaltet von der Gesellschaft für Ostasiatische Kunst und der Preußischen Akademie der Künste Berlin vom 12. Januar bis 2. April 1929’, ed. Otto Kümmel (Berlin, 1929), pp. 33– 458 (catalogue of the objects exhibited). See sale catalogue Christie’s London, ‘The important collection of Chinese porcelain objects of art and carpets, the property of a gentleman (Formerly resident abroad)’, 26–27. 4. 1939. This catalogue of the sale of the collection of Herbert Otto von Klemperer confirms that the col-lection’s focus was on émail sur biscuit with no fewer than 162 such items, with it also being possible for one ‘lot’
to be made up of several objects. For information related to this matter I am grateful to Monika Tatzkow of the Wissenschaftlicher Dokumentationsdienst/Offene Vermögensfragen, Berlin, who is also active on behalf of the legal representation of the descendants of Herbert Otto von Klemperer.
40 On the little snuff bottles, see ibid. pp. 45– 50, for example, lots no. 180, 181 (two bottles), 182, 196, 204, 218 (two bottles). On the state of health of Frieda von Klemperer, who died in 1945, see Leo Baeck Institute Archives, Mem-oir Collection (ME 559), p. 63; Ekkehard Klausa, ‘Klemens von Klemperer. Ein Lebensbild’, in Klemens von Klemperer, Der einsame Zeuge. Von der existenziellen Dimension des Widerstandes gegen den Nationalsozialismus, ed.
Ekkehard Klausa (Berlin, 2016), pp. 9– 32, here p. 15.
41 Between 1938 and 1940, on the plot formerly occupied by 1 Drakestrasse, the architect Johann Emil Schaudt (1874–1957) built the Danish legation in the quarter containing numerous diplomatic representations at the south-ern end of the Tiergarten park. Today the building contains a hotel; see Matthias Donath, Architektur in Berlin 1933–1945. Ein Stadtführer (Berlin, 2004), p. 99 and 104–105.
42 In the Lost Art Database it is stated that the ‘auction sales of his property took place between 1937 and 1940 at Lange und Achenbach, Berlin’, see http://www.lostart.de/Content/051_ProvenienzRaubkunst/DE/Sammler/K/
Klemperer,%20Herbert-Otto%20v..html (last retrieved 18. 3. 2021). No more detailed information is known.
43 See Ekkehard Klausa, ‘Herbert von Klemperer – ein vertriebener Berliner Wirtschaftskapitän’, in Klemens von Klemperer, Der einsame Zeuge. Von der existenziellen Dimension des Widerstandes gegen den Nationalsozialis-mus, ed. Ekkehard Klausa (Berlin, 2016), p. 376.
44 On Isidor Loewe, see Hans Christoph Seherr-Thoß, ‘Loewe, Isidor’, in Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 15 (1987), pp. 78– 81, online at https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd142353817.html#ndbcontent (last retrieved 18. 3. 2021).
45 Victor von Klemperer was active on the following supervisory boards, among others: Sächsische Gussstahl-Werke Döhlen AG, Dresden-Freital; Gehe & Co. AG (production of paints and pharmaceutical and chemical products which later became world-famous); AG für Cartonnagen-Industrie Dresden; the ‘AG vorm. Seidel & Naumann’, Dresden (one of Germany’s biggest manufacturers of sewing machines and typewriters). Furthermore, he was on the supervisory board of the ‘Baugesellschaft für die Residenzstadt Dresden AG’, his departure from which on 20. 6. 1938 was announced in the Zweite Beilage zum Deutschen Reichsanzeiger und Preußischen Staatsanzeiger, no. 143, of 23. 6. 1938. The outstanding payments for work in the last business year were paid into his ‘emigrant’s frozen account’ (‘Auswanderersperrkonto’, to which he had no access), by which time Victor was already living in Southern Rhodesia.
46 Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden (SächsStA-D), 13128 Baugesellschaft für die Residenzstadt Dresden, no. 21, inter alia correspondence between the board of directors and the members of the supervisory board, 1937–1939 (old shelf mark no. 5374). The joint stock company was founded on 30. 4. 1885 as a building bank.
After being renamed at some unknown point in time, the company operated until August 1935 as the ‘Baubank für die Residenzstadt Dresden’ and from 1935 as ‘Baugesellschaft für die Residenzstadt Dresden AG’. It was respon-sible for the administration and utilization of plots of land in its ownership in Dresden, the acquisition of further plots of land in Dresden, and the utilization or selling of such properties, and the construction of buildings, streets and squares. In 1950 it was renamed ‘Baugesellschaft für die Stadt Dresden’. A year later the board of directors filed a bankruptcy petition, which was however rejected on account of a shortage of assets. Most of the shares were held by old banks whose rights had been taken over by the Deutsche Investitionsbank in accordance with the
‘takeover regulation’ (Übernahmeverordnung) of 25. 1. 1951. The company is recorded as having existed until at least 1953, see https://www.archiv.sachsen.de/archiv/bestand.jsp?oid=09.21&bestandid=13128&_ptabs=%7B%
22%23tab-geschichte%22%3A1%7D#geschichte (last retrieved 27. 5. 2021).
47 Although a number of annual reports recorded that he would be resigning from the executive committee (Vorstand) or administrative council (Verwaltungsrat) as of the following financial year, this is regularly contradicted in the subsequent annual reports, which indicate that from the second financial year (1923) Victor continued his activity on the committee or administrative council without interruption. In the eighth annual report (financial year 1929), Victor is recorded as being deputy treasurer, and from the ninth annual report (financial year 1930 and first half of 1931) as treasurer. In the tenth annual report (second half of 1931 and first half of 1932), too, Victor is still recorded as being treasurer and member of the executive committee and administrative council. In the eleventh annual
47 Although a number of annual reports recorded that he would be resigning from the executive committee (Vorstand) or administrative council (Verwaltungsrat) as of the following financial year, this is regularly contradicted in the subsequent annual reports, which indicate that from the second financial year (1923) Victor continued his activity on the committee or administrative council without interruption. In the eighth annual report (financial year 1929), Victor is recorded as being deputy treasurer, and from the ninth annual report (financial year 1930 and first half of 1931) as treasurer. In the tenth annual report (second half of 1931 and first half of 1932), too, Victor is still recorded as being treasurer and member of the executive committee and administrative council. In the eleventh annual